Robotech Revisited

Robotech was a cartoon series that I watched in the 1980s. It was, at the time, a stunning story because it wasn’t just about blowing aliens up or selling merchandising, but it was about characters in a tough situation.

And way cool battles for the action woman.

It had three parts to it. The first, and the best, was the Rick/Minmai/Lisa series. Nothing more spectacular than how the humans won the battle in the final part of the story. Next up was the Dana series, and followed by the Rebel series. The later two felt like they were added on … you know, where the first story was finished and told but did so well, they wanted a sequel.

I rewatched more recently–post military– and found myself cringing through the first part of the series because of fact checking issues.

I’m generally not picky about research details that aren’t quite right. Sometimes you have to change things to tell the story the way it needs to be told. But I found myself cringing over the way the military was presented. The military ranks were all over the place, enlisted were disrespectful to the officers, and officer/enlisted romantic relationships (gets you in to big trouble in the real military).

I could have ignored some of the rank issues–because I have done that for many movies and TV shows (notably Law and Order this morning had an Army captain with a rack of medals only a general could have). But Robotech was so sloppy in that area that it made it hard to revisit the good story I remembered.

Now Robotech being brought back as a comic book retelling. Cool art. And at least one of the same problems.

—

I know everyone’s image of the military is what we see on the news and in film. It’s one of the reasons I did the Writer’s Guide to Military Culture.